


The Love Song of R. "Trashmouth" Tozier

by anonymous_yet_again



Series: Kairos [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Healing, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Therapy, Trauma, oh and of course:, this is mostly sweet stuff I swear, very oblique references to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_yet_again/pseuds/anonymous_yet_again
Summary: In the two years after Eddie reunites with the Losers, Eddie and Richie go to therapy, and do some things on their own, and do some things together, and heal.  Featuring a lot of out-of-order scenes, brief cameos by most of the other Losers, and a truly obnoxious number of references to poetry.____________Set after “Eddie Kaspbrak and the Happy Medium” which you probably need to read if you want to understand, like, any of what happened before this in this very self-indulgent AU.  Written after I wrote the end note on that story, which says “I (probably) won’t write anything else in this fandom.”  At least I knew myself well enough to include the parenthetical.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, other Loser pairings in the background
Series: Kairos [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2056497
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	1. I. November

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for two reasons; one is that one kind person left a comment on the preceding story saying “I would love a sequel where…” Not sure I hit any of the “where…” but it was enough to make me start writing again. The other reason is that I read lots of poems while looking for my pretentious little chapter headings on the last story, and decided that “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot (which the title of this is based on) is a very Richie poem, and “Preludes,” also by Eliot (which the whole framework of this is based on) is a very Eddie poem, and I wanted to use them! Both of them do have slightly sadder vibes than this does, but it’s my story and I like happy endings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The winter evening settles down  
> With smell of steaks in passageways.  
> Six o'clock.  
> The burnt out end of smoky days.
> 
> \- T. S. Eliot, "Preludes"

It’s well past five when Eddie glances at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. He is equal parts annoyed and gratified to find how much time has passed without him noticing. Annoyed because, these days, he has a much better work-life balance than he did less than a year ago, and he meant to leave at five; gratified because there are some days when, to pass the hours he _does_ spend at work, he finds himself unable to focus and simply going through the motions. This afternoon, though, he was drawn into the Muschetti file simply because it was interesting enough that he _wanted_ to be, not only because his work is due tomorrow; and now time has passed, his work is complete, and it is past time for him to be heading home. Eddie saves things, turns off his computer, and stands up to grab his coat.

“Heading out, Kaspbrak?” says Leon, whose office is next door to Eddie’s, and also very near the elevator, and who has his desk oriented and his door open so that he can blatantly watch everyone who leaves and arrives on their floor. Eddie used to try to always say hello to Leon when he passed his office, because he seemed like the sort of person Eddie was supposed to be friends with; he’s OK at his job, and complains about his wife sometimes, and plays golf on the weekends. Today, Eddie grunts wordlessly, and waves goodbye.

***

“Do you even like your job?” Richie said once.

“I don’t hate it,” said Eddie. “Statistics--they’re kind of, uh, fun.” Richie made a visible effort to keep himself from making fun of Eddie for this, since they were having a serious discussion. Well, sort of. What passed for one, with the two of them.

“Do you like, like, any of the people?” said Richie. “Is there, I dunno, a good lunch place nearby? Like, anything I’ll comprehend, so not the statistics part of it.”

“Oh, so you mean the parts of my job that _aren’t actually my job_ ,” Eddie said, but he thought about it. “A lot of the guys are total douches,” he admitted.

“Are there no women?” said Richie, eyebrows raised very slightly.

“Uh, the receptionist,” said Eddie, realizing as he said it how terrible it was.

“OK,” said Richie. “Not great, like, diversity-wise, but that isn’t your fault. Is she nice?”

***

Eddie steps out of the elevator into the lobby, which is already colder than the floors above, since it has actual openings to the outdoors, and wraps his scarf around his neck. “Hi, Cady,” he says.

Cady--”spelled like in _Mean Girls_ ”--looks up from her big horseshoe shaped desk and smiles. “Hi, Mr. K,” she says. Eddie has told her at least once to call him Eddie, but he doesn’t mind being Mr. K too much either, maybe because Cady is enough younger than him--mid-twenties, working on a Master’s--that it almost makes sense, or maybe because it reminds him of being twelve and fussing over a scrape on Richie’s knee, and being called Dr. K for his pains. “Heading out a little later than normal, huh?”

No one in the office exactly got notified when Eddie regained his memories of childhood trauma, almost exactly a year ago now; but he _did_ tell his boss when Myra died, because he’d been taking bereavement leave, and the news had spread, as news does, around the office while he was gone. Most of his co-workers signed a card, and avoided direct eye contact when he returned. Cady caught his eye, the first time he came into work after the death was public knowledge, and said, “Hey, Mr. Kaspbrak. I’m very sorry about your wife.”

Eddie said, “Thanks, uh...” which was when she told him her name, and how to spell it. Then he went to the bathroom on his floor and cried a little, but that wasn’t her fault.

“I guess,” says Eddie now, realizing that Cady is the only person in the office who has noticed any shift or pattern in when he arrives and leaves. “ _You_ don’t have to stay much longer, do you?”

“No, I’m out of here at six,” says Cady, glancing at her own computer. “Then I’m going out to dinner, actually, it’s my girlfriend’s birthday.”

Myra used to call the three women from her short-lived book group her “girlfriends.” Somehow, Eddie knows this is different. “I have a boyfriend,” he blurts. This is inane because, for one, Cady didn’t ask and, for another, she probably already knows, or at least suspects; Richie has dropped by the office several times in the past year, bringing lunch, or picking Eddie up at the end of the day. This may have started long before they put any sort of label on their relationship, but these days, while they don’t exactly make out in the lobby, they don’t avoid physical contact, either. Happily, she just smiles at him. “That’s great, Mr. K,” she says. “Us queers gotta stick together.”

This is a good day, and the word only causes Eddie a brief moment of dissonance, during which he reminds himself that she means it in a proud way. Then he recovers his normal social abilities, says, “Have a nice dinner, and happy birthday to your girlfriend,” and leaves the office.

Outside is cold and dark, but only moderately. It is refreshing, after the slightly overzealous heating in Eddie’s office. Stray rays from the sinking sun glint through the tall buildings of the Inner Harbor, doing nothing to alleviate the chill. Eddie sinks his chin a little further into his scarf, and walks home.

***

“Do you always drive to work?” said Richie, over lunch. It was spring; they’d bought sandwiches to-go from a place near Eddie’s office, and were sitting on a bench looking out over the Harbor.

“Yes,” said Eddie, not sure why Richie had asked.

“ _I_ can walk to your office in, like, forty minutes,” said Richie. “Less, if I’m not listening to a slow song. It’s probably, what, like half an hour, tops, from your house? If you walked, I mean.”

Eddie had gone through a season, early on in his marriage, his job, and his move to Baltimore, where he _had_ walked to and from work, sometimes. The season had been summer, and it had felt like it would always be summer. Then the days had started shortening.

“Myra didn’t like me walking in the dark,” said Eddie. “I mean, it’s Baltimore.”

“Uh, from the Inner Harbor to Fells Point?” said Richie. “Not exactly back-alley places.”

“Yeah,” said Eddie, which was really all that needed to be said. Then he said, “Well, it won’t be dark until late, tomorrow.”

“I can swing by at the end of the day,” said Richie, possibly forgetting that Eddie would need to get to work in the morning, too.

“That’s OK,” said Eddie. “I’d like to figure out the best route on my own.”

***

As Eddie nears his own place, his surroundings shift from businesses to townhouses and condos. It’s a shiny neighborhood; in the silver of the streetlamps, even the bricks look clean, or at least cleaner than many parts of the city. It’s lived-in, though. He smells someone’s dinner cooking as he approaches his own front door: the smoky smell of roasting meat.

Eddie is thirty-eight years old, and he is learning to cook for the first time. Today he is making pasta, which he has made before--the first time was at Stan, Patty, and Richie’s house where, despite Richie’s oversight, he’d burned the jarred sauce he’d also been heating, and cried about it. Luckily, Stan and Patty had been gone, and Richie was sworn to secrecy--not about the burnt sauce, which was hard to hide when the house smelled of it, but about the resulting tears. He is more experienced now, and also has less to distract him when he’s home alone focused only on cooking.

As the water heats for pasta, and before he chops the vegetables he is planning to saute in pesto--he is not allergic to pine nuts--Eddie scrolls through Spotify on his phone. He talked to his therapist, Dave, months ago about the different kinds of silence that he notices now he’s living alone--the soothing kind, for example, and the oddly suffocating kind that leaves him on edge--and Dave said, “Well, you can always fill it, even if you don’t feel like talking to someone; put on a show or play some music,” which is the sort of advice that always makes Eddie feel slightly ashamed that he needs a therapist to point this out, and also kind of pitifully grateful.

Eddie and Myra didn’t listen to music in the house. In the car, he would occasionally turn on talk radio, but not often, because of the statistics about distracted driving. This meant that all his knowledge of popular music came to an abrupt end in the late nineties. Now that he listens to music again, though, the Losers have been happy to pass on recommendations. He puts on Neutral Milk Hotel radio, checks the pasta water, and starts washing the vegetables off.

He burns a few pieces of onion, doesn’t add enough salt. Eddie picks out the burned onion meticulously, with kitchen tongs, and puts a salt shaker on the table. The food is still good. He lets the music keep playing as he eats, scrolling through the news on his phone with one hand; but careful not to let that hand touch his food. He knows how much bacteria is on a smartphone.

When he stands up and pushes back his chair, the noise of the chair scraping across the floor is loud despite the background music. Eddie blinks, and considers. So far, this has been a normal post-work evening, except that none of his evenings are exactly the same, anymore. Eddie no longer expects them to be; he is, after all, the one who generally initiates any change.

The leftovers--enough for a lunch at work--have cooled in the pots; Eddie carries his dishes to his sink, pulls out tupperware, considers longer. Then he unlocks his phone, turns off the music, and props it on the counter where he can see the screen easily as he cleans up from dinner. Before he starts the clean up, he makes a call.

His FaceTime request is accepted after one ring. Eddie stands at the counter, not even dividing up the leftovers yet, as the image blurs and shifts and settles: the wall behind Stan and Patty’s couch, half a face.

“Hey, Spaghetti,” say the same speakers that were just playing “Two-Headed Boy.” “Any hot goss from the office peeps today? Tell me everything.”

“Hi, Richie,” says Eddie, and smiles, and reaches for the tupperware.


	2. II. January

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning comes to consciousness  
> Of faint stale smells of beer  
> From the sawdust-trampled street  
> With all its muddy feet that press  
> To early coffee-stands.
> 
> \- T. S. Eliot, "Preludes"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: references to Richie and Eddie's (mostly past) internalized homophobia; some therapy, idk if this requires warning. (also a note: this author has never actually been to therapy, please do not get life advice from this work of fanfiction, or at least don't let it be your only source of such.)

Richie’s alarm goes off on his phone, and he grabs it and is able to silence the alarm and open his text chain with Eddie in almost one movement. Holding the phone three inches from his face--without bothering to find his glasses--he types out and sends, “up and at em sleepy-Eds!” He is maybe inordinately proud of this moniker.

Eddie sends back a nonsensical keysmash that nonetheless manages to convey his emotions about waking up. Richie beams fondly at his phone as he gets up.

It’s been almost six months since Richie quit his final wait-staff job. This is directly related to a different sort of gig that Bill, of all people, hooked him up with: one of Bill’s successful writer friends got a movie deal based on a plot sketch, started writing it, and found that the movie needed to be funnier than he was capable of making it. Bill, to hear him tell it, got his friend drunk, showed him videos of Richie’s stand-up--there are a few official clips put out by some of the better venues he’s been to, now, not just shitty iPhone footage on YouTube--and convinced him that he needed a co-writer. Richie accepted the position bemusedly, not least because he was given some money up front. Production itself has stalled a couple times, because the other writer keeps changing his mind about certain scenes, but Richie’s bits have been going well, and been well accepted.

Downstairs, Patty stands in the kitchen, which smells strongly of coffee and, faintly, of beer. Ben and Bev were over last night; a half-empty bottle still sits on the dining room table. Richie snags it as he walks past, dumps the remaining beer down the drain, tosses the bottle into the recycling. Sometimes he is astonished by how much he and his friends have changed, while still staying friends. In college, they would have been lucky to have _any_ bottles of beer left after a night hanging out; any half-full bottles left sitting around would have been finished off by Ben, with plenty of encouragement from the rest of them. Right after college--well. That was the time when the Losers drifted apart, lost contact even by phone; that was when Bev married Tom, and Richie decided that, just maybe, they _did_ hate him for being gay, after all. Waking up to the scent of beer wasn’t unusual for him, then; it meant that he’d fallen asleep in a small puddle of it. The only good thing about that was that it was generally at someone else’s house, and even then, Richie had been a fairly early riser; he would stand up, wipe his face off with his shirt, and wend home again while the other party-goers still slept.

“Morning,” says Patty, who has half of her face hidden in a very large mug. Stan is still asleep; Patty is only up because she works in the school system. Richie is up because he no longer has late shifts at a restaurant, and it turns out that he likes to get up early. Eddie, who now gets up an hour later than he used to when he lived with Myra and spent as little time in his house as possible--and who is still always grumpy upon waking--was adorably incensed to realize how chipper Richie is in the mornings. This is part of why Richie always makes sure to text him.

“Good morning,” says Richie, reaching to grab a mug for himself. Another thing that annoys Eddie is that Richie, who often orders complex, frothy, sickeningly sweet drinks from fancy coffee places, is also happy to drink coffee black. Eddie physically cannot--Richie has seen him spit it out before. He at least needs some oat milk; Myra liked to limit his sugar. Richie thinks of this while he pours his own coffee, and sips it, and decides to do something that he was already half-planning to do anyway.

***

Richie said “I love you” out loud to Eddie for the first time seven months ago. He had said it mentally, in Eddie’s direction, countless times before that; he still thinks it at him a lot. Neither of them say it out loud that often yet, but that’s OK. Richie is pretty sure it’s a “yet” thing. They worked their way up to saying it at all; they’re still working.

“I know--well, I’m pretty sure--he _does_ love me, because he’s never said it,” Richie said to Theresa, nine months ago, as part of the working up to it. Theresa is his therapist. He and Eddie researched therapists together, at least until Richie had started searching specifically for LGBT+ friendly therapists, which had made Eddie hyperventilate until he had to get up and walk away.

“Do you not want me to search this?” Richie called after him, genuinely asking. They were in Richie’s house; Eddie had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

“No,” said Eddie, reappearing dragging a vacuum cleaner and breathing slightly easier. “I mean, yes. I mean, you--you probably should. I just--can you? I mean, without me. You can--I trust you.”

Richie fought down the urge to get up and kiss Eddie’s forehead ridges, the line between his eyebrows, the crease in his cheek. He smiled at him instead, and made a little list of promising looking therapists with his feet drawn up onto the couch, while Eddie vacuumed around him.

“What I mean,” Richie said to Theresa, “is that he says it to the other Losers--I mean, our friend group, I guess I’ve told you about them--but he doesn’t say it to me, and I know he at _least_ loves me the way he loves them, so I guess I figure if he doesn’t say it, it’s probably because he loves me...not _more_. Differently, I guess.”

Theresa has gray hair and librarian glasses, like on a chain; she is kind but no nonsense, and Richie likes her a lot even though he is occasionally made to squirm under her kind, no-nonsense regard. She is the very first therapist he tried; he actually set up short, back-to-back appointments for himself and Eddie, just so Eddie could try it out, but it turned out that an older woman with some perceived authority was not someone Eddie could really open up to, which made sense when Richie actually stopped to think about it for a minute. That’s why Eddie now has Dave, who Richie has never met, but who sounds, from Eddie’s occasional stories, kind of like Stan in his blunt helpfulness. The important thing is, they both have therapists, and that was probably another very important step in the whole working-up-to-it thing.

Theresa told Richie that what he was saying made sense, and they spent a little time dissecting how he felt about Eddie’s current inability or unwillingness to tell Richie he loved him. Then they talked a little about Richie saying it to Eddie. Richie and Theresa spend a lot of time talking about Eddie, but he isn’t the only thing they discuss.

“Of course, clear communication is important,” said Theresa, near the end of that session, “but there are also ways to _show_ a person you love them. And it sounds like you want Eddie to know, so at some point you’ll have to discuss it, you can’t just count on him reading into the things you do; but it also sounds like you want to express your love because it exists, and it’s there to be expressed. You can do that without saying it explicitly.”

***

Richie takes a bus partly to save time, and partly because it’s cold out, and even just the breeze made when he walks is enough to make his eyes water and his nose feel dried up and frozen inside. He is at least wearing a beanie, so his ears are only moderately frigid; his leather coat alone isn’t super warm, but with a hoodie under it, it’s pretty cozy. He isn’t wearing a scarf or any gloves, and he knows those oversights will get him scolded, which is part of why he isn’t wearing them.

He stops at a coffee place from which he can see glimpses of the river; buys a smaller mocha-flavored thing for himself--after all, he had coffee at home, too--and a larger cappuccino with caramel in it, because he likes to try to make up where he can for all the years Eddie spent avoiding sugar, or rather, having it avoided for him. He crosses the street and loiters outside the lofty office building, confident that he’s early enough, but hoping that he isn’t too early, and that the coffee won’t get cold. He wraps a hand carefully around each cardboard cup, as if to hold in the heat, and takes small sips of his mocha.

There aren’t too many people out and about in this area, at this time of the morning, but there are some, and despite their unarguable diversity, they still somehow all look the same. Richie makes a game of guessing their occupation by their shoes, which is harder than he thought it would be; a couple construction workers clomp past in boots, but then the next several are all wearing boring, nice-ish office shoes, black or brown, always leather. Two women go by in pumps and pantyhose, and Richie grimaces a little at how cold their feet must be. He scans along the sidewalk at ground level. From the corner, more black shoes approach, their owners walking near each other, but not really together; and then Richie’s gaze catches on a pair, and he lifts his eyes up the gray wool coat to the red scarf and gray knit hat, with Eddie’s face perched in between, his expression a familiar, distinctive mix of exasperation and joy.

“Why didn’t you wait in the lobby, dumbass?” is the first thing Eddie says.

“Hi, honey, I brought coffee,” says Richie, and watches Eddie’s already flushed cheeks turn just slightly darker red.

“Jesus, Rich, your hands must be freezing,” says Eddie, taking the coffee Richie holds out. Eddie, of course, is wearing gloves. “This is sweet,” he adds after tasting, as if surprised. He shouldn’t be; Richie always gets him sweet coffee.

“Just like you,” says Richie, unable to help himself, and pulls Eddie’s hat down so it covers his scowly eyebrows and big eyes. Eddie bats him away blindly.

“You’re gonna mess up my hair, asshole,” says Eddie, shoving his hat back up. Richie doubts this; Eddie deals with the threat of hat hair by using twice as much gel on his hair as he uses normally, so like a full tin or tube or whatever hair gel comes in. Richie is impressed that his hat doesn’t get permanently glued down, and has said so in the past.

Today, he just says, “Sorry,” but with a big enough grin that Eddie can tell he isn’t serious. He gets an eye roll for it; perfect.

There is a pause in their banter while they both sip their coffees. Richie’s is cool, and over halfway gone, but Eddie’s must be warm enough because he seems to be enjoying it. They could go into the lobby, but they don’t, standing to the side of the doors in a spot that countless people have walked over, but that right now belongs to only them.

Richie finishes his coffee with an obnoxious slurp, and moves to go inside to throw the cup out, but Eddie stops him. Richie’s right hand is in his jacket pocket--where he put it after handing Eddie’s coffee over--and Eddie reaches out as soon as Richie shifts, and hooks a hand through the crook of his elbow.

Richie glances down at Eddie, and fights down a sappy smile. They are standing at a ninety-degree angle to each other, a foot or two apart. This really is a flying visit for the sake of delivering coffee, and they both know it; Eddie has to go to work, and Richie, though he doesn’t have regular hours these days, does have deadlines he needs to meet. Eddie isn’t even looking at him. But when Richie sways a little on his feet, just testing, Eddie’s hand tightens on his inner elbow, glove slipping over the folds of Richie’s leather jacket, and Richie gives up on the fight, lets the sappy smile break out over his whole face until anyone walking past will be able to see it, would be able to look at them and say, “Hey, that tall idiot looks like he really loves that short asshole,” and they would be right. And Richie looks down at Eddie’s hand on his elbow, and knows the short asshole loves him back. There are plenty of ways to show you love somebody.


	3. III. April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You dozed, and watched the night revealing  
> The thousand sordid images  
> Of which your soul was constituted.
> 
> \- T. S. Eliot, "Preludes"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: nightmares, anxiety; panic attacks and internalized homophobia (mostly past). more therapy. this chapter has the most explicit (but still very veiled) references to Eddie's past assault and abuse.

Eddie is dreaming. He is awake enough to know that he is dreaming, but hasn’t yet reached the stage of waking where he can sort out his dreams from reality. His boss is frustrated, because Eddie was playing solitaire instead of working; but then Eddie wakes up a little and thinks, _That’s not how my boss looks_ ; it takes another stage of waking for him to realize, _He wouldn’t do that, that’s not how my boss would punish me_. Though Eddie feels objectively like it should be the more traumatic part of the dream, the feeling of the odd, familiar, terrible punishment is already fading; but the woman in the corner is still crying about it, and this is somehow worse. Crying about _him_ , but not reaching to help. “Oh, Eddie, what did he do,” says Mommy--says Myra-- _You’re_ , “dead,” says Eddie out loud to her, and wakes himself the rest of the way.

He is right at the edge of his bed, tucked into his normal sleeping position: legs straight and together, arms drawn in. He rolls once, towards the center, and stops. Richie isn’t in bed with him. If he were, Eddie would have run into him already. Richie sleeps expanded, the opposite of Eddie’s contraction; his arms and legs go everywhere, and something always ends up crossed over Eddie, no matter how far apart they start. Nine years of a marriage bed with Myra led to Eddie’s current habits, and a year and a half of the bed belonging to him again hasn't broken him of them yet; but he doesn’t always sleep on the edge anymore. Sometimes he rolls against the edge of Richie’s warm bulk, arms in, still, but head nudging out a space. Occasionally, he reaches out an arm, and holds on.

Richie isn’t here tonight at all. Eddie knew this, but wanted to make sure anyway. Richie is helpful, when there are nightmares. He says things that Eddie doesn’t listen to, focusing instead on the rumble of his tired voice, on the fact of Richie existing. But Richie and Eddie only share a bed every other night, on average; and Richie isn’t here tonight, and Eddie is alone. This is both a relief and a terror. It shouldn’t be scary. Eddie likes having his own space. But he hasn’t actually opened his eyes yet, and the feelings from the dream are still clinging to his mind, around the edges; and alone in the middle of his bed is suddenly the scariest place Eddie knows.

***

During his third full session with Dave, Eddie got angry at himself, right at the beginning of the appointment. He didn’t tell Dave he was angry; he didn’t even know he was going to _be_ angry. He just suddenly was. Because during the first two sessions--plus the shorter intro session, when they’d been seeing if they clicked or whatever--Eddie had pretty much covered the things he felt like he probably needed to cover. He’d told Dave about his mom, and about Bob Gray; he’d talked about his repressed memories, and more about his mom, and how he’d regained the memories when he ran into his friends again. He’d touched on Myra--his marriage to her, and her sudden death, which were sort of two separate topics. He’d even talked about Richie, and he’d said, “I really, really like him,” and even though he obviously had more things on pretty much every one of those topics that he _could_ say, it wasn’t like Dave didn’t have a pretty good grasp of the situation, even on the things that Eddie hadn’t said yet, and maybe on some of the things that he was struggling to say at all.

Eddie didn’t say any of this, though, he just got angry at himself for the struggling; and because he was angry, he found the ability, somehow, to look at Dave right after they’d first exchanged greetings, and to say, “Dave,” and then, for the first time in his life, “I’m gay,” after which he had a panic attack so severe that he’d almost passed out.

For most of the rest of that session, Dave helped Eddie figure out coping mechanisms to calm himself down from a panic attack; they didn’t really have time to touch on the statement that had caused it in much detail. Near the end of the session, Dave did say, “Eddie, why do you think you pushed yourself so hard today?” and Eddie had to try to explain that he wanted to be better sooner.

Then they talked about word choice for the five minutes that were left, because Dave said that it was OK for Eddie to be _unhappy_ or _scared_ , and to want to change that, but that he wasn’t _bad_ just because he was unhappy or scared. Eddie, at the time, was skeptical, but he didn’t exactly want Dave thinking any worse of him, so he didn’t say so. These days, his approach to therapy is hopefully a little healthier (and _unhealthy_ is another thing that it is OK to want to change, according to Dave).

Eddie used the panic-attack-calming techniques a lot, after that. He still uses them, though slightly less often. Dave says that it’s likely that he’s always had anxiety, even though he’d thought it was asthma for a while. Eddie stopped using his inhaler a long time ago; even before Myra died--but after regaining the memories reminding him it was a fake--he’d mostly carried it around to keep her happy. He is glad he stopped using it so early on. But it’s nice to have other things to fall back on, those times when his brain starts going haywire, and his breath getting short.

***

When Eddie had that whopper of a panic attack in his therapist’s office, Dave said, “Eddie, I know it feels like you aren’t safe, but you _are_ safe, it’s just you and me in here, no one else is going to come in, you’re safe here, Eddie.” Now Eddie repeats to himself, just in his head, _It’s safe, I’m safe, it’s safe_ , and even though he doesn’t really believe it at first, he eventually remembers that it’s true.

Eddie starfishes his limbs out the way he never does when he’s sleeping; the bed is still empty, but it’s also _his_ , and familiar; the sheets are soft. He opens his eyes finally; there is some light coming in the window, from the closest streetlight. Myra didn’t like there to be light coming in when she slept, she liked black-out curtains. Eddie, quietly, shamefully, doesn’t like the full dark. He likes there to be a little bit of light, even in the nighttime, like a nightlight. And this is _his_ room, so there are no blackout curtains, and the light can shine through.

He is still breathing hard, or maybe just funny, but Eddie is also aware that he is doing things right, and that he will be OK. He does an exercise with his senses, which is harder without Richie because his senses are usually taken up with him; hearing: Richie’s breathing; sight: Richie’s shoulder; scent: well, Richie himself. But he can do it now, too, and it still works to ground him. Hearing: sirens, far off and getting farther; sight: a framed map of Baltimore from 1822, which he chose himself and hung on the wall; scent: his own fear sweat, now drying.

***

The Losers--Patty included--are the best people Eddie knows. Also, every single one of them has gone through their own _thing_ \--all different, but with commonalities--and has somehow come out the other side of their _thing_ with knowledge of how to care for others also going through some _thing_ , even something else. Even when they were still relearning who Eddie was, when they’d really only known his adult self for a few months, total, they still managed to love him and work him through objectively the worst several months of his life. There were a few mistakes, because they’re all human, but they’d somehow almost always known exactly how and when to reach out, and what to do when they connected.

But it was Eddie himself who, working on his own ability to reach out, went to Ben a month or two after Myra’s death and said, “Ben, I want to change my house around, and I’d like help.”

In the end, though Ben was helpful, he was not the only one to help. Eddie didn’t need to make any architectural changes; he just needed to make some changes, period. He’d gotten rid of most of the things that were Myra’s in the week or so after her death, but he hadn’t gotten things to replace them, so spots on the walls that had once held prints saying, “Live, Laugh, Love,” or carefully arranged groups of their wedding photos, were just blank. And he hadn’t changed any of what was left behind; her books weren’t on her nightstand anymore, but her nightstand was still there, and his was on the other side of their bed, and the bed was against the same wall it had always been against. So, changes.

Eddie had actually liked his house once--it was in a good neighborhood, and it was a good medium size, and it looked nice inside before you added furniture--and when all of the Losers showed up one weekend to help paint his bedroom and rearrange furniture, he realized that he could like it again. Richie insisted on calling it “Eddie’s second housewarming party,” even though Eddie kept saying they hadn’t had a _first_ housewarming party, and he’d brought a present: a framed 8.5 by 11 flier for a stand-up show that Richie had been in several years ago. It was a show where he’d covered last minute for another performer, so his name wasn’t even in the printed line-up; instead, some guy named “Don Hagerty” was crossed off, and “Richie Tozier” was scrawled next to it in permanent marker. Richie had saved it anyway. Eddie hung it in his office.

That evening, with paint drying on his bedroom walls and also their clothes; with most of his furniture in the same rooms, but pushed into new formations; with a few new knick-knacks sitting in carefully chosen spots--Richie wasn’t the only one who’d brought a present--the Losers ordered pizza, and sat around in Eddie’s new-old living room, and ate it; and then they drifted away two by two, until Richie and Eddie were the only ones left. “You could stay, in the guest room,” said Eddie. Richie looked almost absurdly grateful.

“I can’t sleep in my room, though,” said Eddie after a moment. “The paint fumes would be bad for me.” Richie looked both hopeful and apprehensive, but didn’t make the suggestion himself, so “I guess we have to share,” said Eddie, bravely. And they did.

***

Eddie is stretched out on his back in the middle of his bed-- _his_ bed, in _his_ house--and he is very tired and shaken, and he doesn’t think he can fall asleep again, but he is also, in some way, OK. At some point in the night, shortly after waking, he shoved his comforter off and halfway to the floor; now that his sweat is cooling on him, he tugs it back up, and doesn’t even worry--much--about dust mites as he pulls it over himself. Sometimes, during the day, when he thinks too hard about his mother, and Myra, and people exerting care over him, he likes to walk around his house-- _his_ house--and look at the way it is now, the things the Losers got him and the things he got for himself. Now he lays on his back instead, and looks around the room, and then just _thinks_ his way through the other rooms, the things that are there, and the things that have happened there, in the year and a half since Myra died.

Once, Dave said, “It’s OK to want your own space, and it’s also OK to let people into your space sometimes. It doesn’t make it any less yours.”

It was dark out when Eddie first woke up; he thinks maybe a couple hours have passed since then. It’s growing steadily lighter; the light coming through the curtains is faint sunlight, now, and the streetlights will go out soon. Eddie has work today, and he’s going to be very tired and unproductive, but he can’t make himself care very much. It’s one day; no one’s going to find and fire him for being tired for one day.

He dozes slightly, eyes still half open.

When Eddie’s alarm rings, he is more tired and more awake than he has ever been in his life. He picks up his phone immediately, sits on the edge of the bed and holds it in one hand. He crosses his legs without thinking about it, props his foot on his knee and then holds that with his other hand, cups it around his sole.

Richie’s usual morning text comes through seconds later, banal and loving. Eddie almost--almost--responds, “Move in with me.” Instead, he types, “Want to get lunch today?”

***

They get lunch. “You were surprisingly awake this morning,” says Richie, squinting a little as the sun hits his eyes.

“I had a bad night,” says Eddie. “Do you want to move in with me?”

Richie looks hopeful and apprehensive. “You want me to move in because you had a bad night?”

“No,” says Eddie. “I want you to move in because I had a bad night, and in the morning, I was fine.”

“Well, in _that_ case,” says Richie, but he can’t hide his grin, which wobbles a little.

“And I love you,” says Eddie.

“That’s good,” says Richie, “because I love you, too.”


	4. IV. September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am moved by fancies that are curled  
> Around these images, and cling:  
> The notion of some infinitely gentle  
> Infinitely suffering thing.
> 
> \- T. S. Eliot, "Preludes"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings (not serious): so many poetry references; spoilers for the entire plot but especially the ending of the 1948 novel _I Capture the Castle_ by Dodie Smith (just go with me here).

“Hi, Cady,” says Richie. He learned Eddie’s receptionist’s name shortly after Eddie did, the first time he came to Eddie’s office so they could get lunch together.

“Hi, Richie!” says Cady. She learned his name the fourth time he came to the office, which seems to be when she figured out that he was going to be a consistent visitor. “Hey, have you read _Franny and Zooey_?”

This is the other, entirely unexpected reason Cady and Richie know each others’ names; it has to do with the film writing Richie is still doing. He’s working with the same writer he’d been working with on the last--first--movie he wrote for, Bill’s friend Jake; but now they’re writing something that’s funny but also involves some, like, time-travelling and literary references--kind of like _Midnight in Paris_ , but, like, not written by a pedophile or whatever. To assist with this, Richie is becoming startlingly well-read.

The secret is that Richie has always, kind of, been well-read. Less of a secret is that he remembers the things he reads. Went would call him “Memorex” occasionally, when he showed a tendency to quote TV shows word-perfectly. Things stick in Richie’s head the way he hears or reads them, word-for-word; comedy is at least half just finding the right reference, probably, and Richie has always had a tendency to quote obscure TV shows and comic pages or, in adulthood, memes and top notch Vines. Now he is suddenly one of those people who quotes, like, books and poetry, too. He is at least self-aware about this, which might just make it worse.

“I haven’t,” he says, with both slight shame and some relief. “Is it good?”

“I’m not sure yet,” says Cady, who was brandishing the book from under her desk, and who now slides it back out of sight. “I like it so far, I’ll let you know.”

Shortly after he’d started doing research--gross--for this new writing project, Richie walked into Eddie’s office building at the end of the day, there to pick him up, saw that Cady was reading _Chicago Poems_ , by Carl Sandburg, and said, “Oh, he’s cool; ‘The fog comes/on little cat feet,’ right?” which was not actually knowledge from his research but from reading his mom’s _A Child’s Treasury of Poems_ or whatever that collection had been called. It’s possible the constant phone discussions with his co-writer earlier in the day had made him more willing to say it. This was when Richie learned Cady was working on a Master’s in literature, or some literature-adjacent subject, at UMBC. They talk about books a lot now.

Richie is saved from further book discussion--not that he minds, really--when Eddie appears from the direction of the elevators and says, “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were coming.”

He isn’t upset, just stating a fact while he puts down the messenger bag he now uses instead of a briefcase, and shrugs on his blazer. Richie should probably be used to loving Eddie Kaspbrak, because he’s been doing it for over a year now or, looking at it another way, for almost thirty; but sometimes he is startled by the intensity of it anyways, especially when--always--it happens at otherwise innocuous times, like now, as Eddie hefts his bag again and smiles at Richie with his eyebrows twisted.

 _And catch the heart off guard and blow it open_ , Richie thinks, which is the final line of a poem he read recently, and then curses at his own brain for being mushy _and_ pretentious at the same time. “I needed a walk anyway,” he says instead, “and I left at exactly the right time to make it here now.”

***

Richie didn’t mean to be the first one of them to say “I love you.” Even as it became clear, following Eddie’s wife’s death, that he and Eddie had...something, some kind of relationship that stayed unlabeled for a very long time, but that was strong and important and good, he didn’t want to push. Richie always struggled with commitment, romantically speaking. A small, die-hard, romantic piece of him wants to say “It was because none of your other partners were Eddie,” but a larger part of Richie knows it was probably related more to the fact that he was repressed and sad, at least when it came to trying to date men and all the baggage associated, for a long time. Also, most of Richie really hopes that he _wasn’t_ hung up on Eddie for twenty-three years. There’s sad and repressed, and then there’s just pathetic.

Still, even if he wasn’t exactly looking for or expecting Eddie Kaspbrak to waltz back into the Losers’ lives--OK, to be immersed back into their lives in spite of himself--Richie figures that he maybe had been waiting for something that could rival their childhood relationship, even if it had just been a particularly close friendship. The Richie and Eddie of elementary and middle school fought a lot, of course, but not about anything important; and also, they trusted each other and got each other through some pretty serious shit, like probably-psychopathic bullies; and they loved each other. Richie knows they did. And there was some physical attraction there, too, at least on Richie’s side, once he hit seventh grade or so and became a still repressed but incredibly randy horndog.

Anyway, despite knowing very early on in their re-acquaintance that he loved Eddie, Richie waited to tell him. He also figured that Eddie had some of his own hang-ups with romance, commitment, and people saying they loved him, entirely separate from those hang-ups that made him start washing dishes or vacuuming every time he and Richie had a careful conversation that danced around the topic of how, sometimes, people were gay.

Richie and Eddie talk about their respective therapy to each other, sometimes--not all of it, but the pieces they feel like sharing. Richie got good, early on, at interpreting some of the things Eddie was _not_ sharing, too, but that he was probably working through with Dave. Despite all this, he was still surprised when, two summers ago, Eddie finished washing dishes, came into the living room, flopped down next to Richie, who was sitting sideways on Eddie’s couch, and said, “I want to go to Pride.”

“Are you sure?” said Richie. At the time, their relationship had progressed far enough that: they shared a bed, on average, once a week; they hugged long and hard every time they parted ways; and sometimes, when they were inside alone or, occasionally, with only the Losers, Eddie held Richie’s hand.

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “I always kind of liked seeing the decorations and stuff other years. Not that I, like, went or anything, just saw things around the city. But. It’s cool. I’d like to see, uh, the other people.”

Richie kind of knew what he meant. “That’s cool, we can do that,” he said. “I mean, if you want me to come with. The first year after we all moved here I went to the parade with Mike and Bill and, like, cried about it.”

Eddie had dropped his hand onto Richie’s ankle, on the couch near him, when he first sat down; now he tightened his grip. “Please come with me,” he said, and then grinned a little. “I’ll make fun of you if you cry. Big baby.”

“Harsh, Spaghetti,” said Richie, twisting his ankle under Eddie’s hand just so that he could prod him in the ribs with his toes. “Just for that, I’m going to embarrass the shit out of you. I’m wearing a rainbow wig and getting face paint, and then I’m going to wipe it all off on you.”

Richie did not wear a wig, and he did not get face paint, and he did not cry. He and Eddie got a spot along the parade route, wearing clothes that were comfortable in the heat but not particularly Pride-ful, and watched the parade. Halfway through, Eddie reached out, and took Richie’s hand.

That was one of those moments where the love welled up all of a sudden, unexpectedly. Richie squeezed Eddie’s hand tight enough that it probably hurt, and looked down at Eddie’s face, and almost started crying after all. Eddie looked back up at him, with an expression that, to anyone else, probably looked angry. Richie recognized it as determination.

“Richie,” said Eddie quietly. They were surrounded by people, but in a little pocket of anonymity--no one was paying them any attention. “I’m gay.”

The love welled all the way up and out of him. “I love you,” said Richie, and then panicked a little, but not for long.

Eddie’s face squinched up and he blinked a lot, and he said, “I know,” and then, “Thank you,” and then, apparently finding neither of these answers to be good enough, “God, Richie, I love you too.”

They missed most of the rest of the parade, because Eddie was hiding his face in Richie’s sleeve, and Richie’s vision was all blurry for some reason, but that was OK. There was always the next year.

***

“...and then Leon CCed _everyone_ , including the client,” Eddie says, waving a hand angrily.

“Fuckin’ Leon,” says Richie, shaking his head mournfully. Richie has never met poor Leon, but he is the co-worker Eddie complains about the most. Richie really hopes he never does meet Leon now, like at a holiday party or something, solely because he would probably accidentally call him “Fuckin’ Leon” to his face.

“Fuckin’ Leon,” Eddie sighs, agreeing, and visibly relaxes a little, apparently complained out. “How was your day?”

“Oh, you know,” says Richie vaguely. He has been watching Eddie’s hands move as he talks, but now Eddie’s hands are still, and Richie shifts his focus to Eddie’s face, as much as he can while still watching where he’s walking. “Reading stuff for this scene where he goes to the twenties and meets a bunch of poets.” Luckily, Eddie is well familiar with the vague plot of the movie Richie is working on, and only nods. “Lots of Eliot, today--’Let us go then, you and I,/When the evening is spread out against the sky…’”

Eddie only pauses for a moment. “That’s a quote?” he says.

“Yeah, obviously,” says Richie, “ _I_ don’t talk like that.”

“Yeah, you say ‘fuck’ a lot more,” says Eddie. “Have you read anything else good lately?”

***

In the years he’s lived in Baltimore, Richie has done a lot of walking around it. He did own a scrap heap of a car for a little while after college, but it gave up its whole existence not long after he and the other Losers moved to Baltimore, and then they were in a city with, like, buses and the Light Rail and, barring everything else, sidewalks. And friends who are willing to occasionally drive Richie places. He’ll get rides--or borrow Stan’s car--to visit his parents, but for everything else, he’s set.

Still, despite all the walking he’s done in the past, he thinks that he’s done even more walking in the last two years than in any of the years before, and most of it has been to and from Eddie’s office building. It’s only seventy percent--ok, eighty percent--because he wants to see Eddie. Walking helps him think of things, it turns out, when he should be writing but isn’t. He doesn’t always go straight towards the Inner Harbor. Richie has walked through neighborhoods where he gets second glances just because he’s a solo white guy, and he also has gone through places that are even shinier and fancier than the area where Eddie lives, which isn’t too shabby itself. Walking in Baltimore is different than walking in Derry, which Richie started doing pretty often in high school. It’s more anonymous; fewer people see you, but there are more people to see.

When Carl Sandburg wrote “Fog,” he was writing about Chicago; but sometimes, Richie walks through Baltimore on a winter evening, and understands. T. S. Eliot probably wasn’t writing about Baltimore either, but reading some of his stuff earlier today, Richie thought of wending his way quietly and alone through a familiar area of the city, and said, mentally, _Yeah_.

Richie doesn’t think that he or Eddie necessarily _belong_ in Baltimore, like some kind of poetic inevitability; like if they and the Losers had all settled down in New York, or Chicago, or LA, that would have been fine, too. They would have made that work out, and Richie might still have read some poems about cities, and said _Yeah_ when he did. But he does think that he and Eddie have made a space for themselves here, anyway--individually, and also together. _I love you. I’m glad I exist_ , thinks Richie, which is yet another line from yet another poem, and for once he isn’t self-conscious about it. He’s just glad someone else knows the feeling.

***

Eddie makes a turn, and Richie follows. They chose to walk along closer to the harbor, today, so they can see the water; a route that is still fairly direct between Eddie’s office and his--their--house, but that Eddie swears adds several minutes to the walk. Richie believes him; but sometimes a longer walk is worth it. Eddie agrees with that.

“Mostly I’ve been writing,” says Richie, in response to Eddie’s last question. He looks at Eddie’s face again; Eddie is on Richie’s left, so that the buildings on this side of the harbor loom behind him. Richie wonders, suddenly, what he would think of Eddie if he had never seen him before. He tries to imagine it; tries to look at the lines around his mouth, his seriously Disney-sized eyes, his “listening” expression, which kind of makes him look angry--most of his expressions could be interpreted as anger--and can’t do it. Richie can’t imagine not knowing who this man is. He does get a glimpse, for just a minute, of _everything_ that he thinks of as Eddie, which is also not something he can hold in his mind for very long. He thinks--and maybe it’s all the damn poetry he’s been reading, but still--he thinks that the lines on Eddie’s face hold all the pieces of their past; and maybe a little bit of their future, too.

“I did read this one book, like, a week or two ago,” says Richie, “by the same chick who wrote _The Hundred and One Dalmatians_ , actually, weird fact but it’s true. Different kind of book though. Anyway, it’s called _I Capture the Castle_ , and I don’t know that it was actually very important for this movie after all, but it was...pretty good, I guess, I don’t know.”

Eddie nods and, for once, doesn’t interrupt.

“It’s this, like, seventeen year old girl’s diary from the 1930s--I mean, it’s fiction, but that’s how it’s written,” says Richie, frowning at nothing as he dredges the plot back up out of his memory, “and it’s kind of messy, like her sister gets engaged to this guy but then the girl--the one writing--falls in love with him, and meanwhile the _sister_ runs off with the guy’s _brother_. So, yeah, kind of a shit-show there. And at the end, the guy who the writer girl loves--and he kind of knows she loves him, but he’s also still hung up on the sister, even though she’s out of the picture now--anyway, at the end, this guy leaves, but he does come to say goodbye. And he might come back, or find her again, but he might not. And she’s running out of space in the diary as she describes this, and at the end, she just writes--she doesn’t say it to him or anything--but she’s at the end of the diary and just has the margins left, and she writes, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ over and over. I kinda liked it, in a way, like it was a good way to end the book. But it’s kinda fuckin’ sad, too. I mean, he might never come back, who knows? And she never actually says it to him. Which--well, I definitely get it. I guess I’m saying there’s times when I’ve kind of been that seventeen-year-old girl.”

Eddie says, “You can say it to me, though, Rich. If you want, I mean. I love you.”

“Eddie,” says Richie, as they turn another corner onto the street where they live, “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The fog comes/on little cat feet." - from "Fog" by Carl Sandburg
> 
> "And catch the heart off guard and blow it open." - from "Postscript" by Seamus Heaney
> 
> "Let us go then, you and I,/When the evening is spread out against the sky..." - from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot
> 
> "I love you. I'm glad I exist." - from "The Orange" by Wendy Cope
> 
>  _I Capture the Castle_ is a very good book and I recommend it; although if you haven't read it, you do know how it ends now, so sorry about that. (Did it inspire, in part, the ending to the last story in this little series? Well, maybe.)
> 
> Thank you for reading my very self-indulgent and slightly pretentious little fic! I like it anyway, I hope you did too.


End file.
